Native Sons

In 1914, Marc Chagall returned to Russia from Paris on what was supposed to be a brief visit. When the First World War broke out, he found himself stranded and soon became swept up in the upheaval that followed, embracing the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 and assuming the post of Art Commissar in his native Vitebsk the following year. Along with his teacher Yehuda Pen, and like-minded masters Kazimir Malevich and Lazar Lissitzky, Chagall transformed Vitebsk from a languishing shtetl into a flourishing art center.

This unexpected proximity to pioneering contemporary ideas in art also made artists of a generation of Vitebsk’s Jewish boys, including my grandfather, Chaim Livchitz, who was five years old when Chagall moved back into his family’s house across the street. Chagall’s longtime friend Viktor Mekler—also a student of Pen—brought some of my grandfather’s drawings to Chagall, who praised them and offered his encouragement. My grandfather then studied with Pen himself before leaving for the Academy of Arts in Leningrad, knowingly following Chagall’s own path from obscurity.

Chagall had always extolled children’s art—one of the distinct sources for his own dreamlike and often fanciful work—and in 1920, when a personal conflict forced him to leave Vitebsk, he moved to Moscow and taught at a Jewish boys’ colony in nearby Malakhovka.

Last month, Moscow’s Ulei gallery mounted a show of children’s drawings from the colony, which date back to the years of Chagall’s tenure and had been preserved by artist Mikhail Fedorov-Roshal. There is barely a whiff of innocence in the twenty works shown at Ulei. The colony housed children who had fled pogroms in Ukraine, and the drawings show a thoughtful engagement with religious stories and scenes of daily life. The favored materials are color pencils and watercolor, with occasional Yiddish inscriptions. The subject matter ranges from illustrations to stories by Sholom Aleichem to drawings of decorative carpet patterns, from landscapes to portraits. One bears a postscript on the back: “I drew how the Bolsheviks entered town.”

While Chagall’s role in the making of these drawings is unclear, their historical interest is transformed by association; the artist’s presence hovers in the background, a marker of an emerging tradition in Jewish modern art. My grandfather’s attachment to Chagall is similarly elusive: Forced to toe the official line during most of his artistic career in Soviet Russia, his life was framed and haunted by his childhood encounters with the artist in Vitebsk. My favorite piece of his may be the earliest one that has survived, a linoleum cut from 1928. Its irreverent tone and animated contours are a tribute to Chagall, who steered and encouraged the young as much as he drew on their insights himself.

WAIT, WHY DO I HAVE TO PAY TO COMMENT?
Tablet is committed to bringing you the best, smartest, most enlightening and entertaining reporting and writing on Jewish life, all free of charge. We take pride in our community of readers, and are thrilled that you choose to engage with us in a way that is both thoughtful and thought-provoking. But the Internet, for all of its wonders, poses challenges to civilized and constructive discussion, allowing vocal—and, often, anonymous—minorities to drag it down with invective (and worse). Starting today, then, we are asking people who'd like to post comments on the site to pay a nominal fee—less a paywall than a gesture of your own commitment to the cause of great conversation. All proceeds go to helping us bring you the ambitious journalism that brought you here in the first place.

I NEED TO BE HEARD! BUT I DONT WANT TO PAY.
Readers can still interact with us free of charge via Facebook, Twitter, and our other social media channels, or write to us at letters@tabletmag.com. Each week, we’ll select the best letters and publish them in a new letters to the editor feature on the Scroll.

We hope this new largely symbolic measure will help us create a more pleasant and cultivated environment for all of our readers, and, as always, we thank you deeply for your support.

Name (required)Email (required, will not be published)Website (optional)

Message

2000

Your comment may be no longer than 2,000 characters, approximately 400 words. HTML tags are not permitted, nor are more than two URLs per comment. We reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments.